Island Offshore Lays Up Two More PSVs as North Sea Lay Ups Top 100 Vessels

Island Offshore has announced the lay ups of its two platform supply vessels (PSVs), Island Dragon and Island Duchess, effectively immediately, pushing the total number of offshore vessel layups in the North Sea to 100 vessels.

The Island Dragon will be replaced with Island Commander on the request on oil company Lundin Norway, which needs a vessel with larger deck capacity. Lundin has been using Island Dragon since June 2014.

“The situation in the spot market is still fragile and we cannot justify letting Island Dragon operate in this market. This means that we will have to lay her up indefinitely. As Lundin is an important customer to us, we want to be flexible to adapt to their change of needs. It is an implicit strength to be able to meet their requests,” stated Håvard Ulstein, managing director of Island Offshore Management AS.

Island Offshore said that it decided to lay up Island Duchess due to the low activity. The vessel, now in Ulsteinvik, has been in Las Palmas for some time, being available for jobs off the coast of Africa.

The company noted that it in talks with employee representatives regarding work force reductions.

Island Offshore has four PSVs in layup, as well as three LWI vessels and one ROV/construction vessel in winter layup. The company’s two of the LWI vessels have started to mobilize for this year’s campaign for Statoil.

The lay-up of Island Dragon pushed number of laid-up offshore vessels in the U.K. and Norwegian sectors of the North Sea to 100 vessels, according to the Norwegian brokering firm Westshore Shipbrokers.

Westhore reported Monday that the Sol Viking and Freyja Viking, part of the Viking Offshore fleet, have also been laid up, growing the total number of lay-ups to 102, according to Westshore.

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